Tag Archives: yak

The high Pamir: a country-sized slab of nothingness. The most beautiful of desert nothingness. Victimised since independence, punished in the UN civil war settlement, a people already without anything and kept alive by the Aga Khan for may years eek a life when none should feasibly be possible.

Deep blue glacial lakes, sheep with horns as wide as a human is tall, hundreds of kilometres of porous international borders and sheer perfection in vistas:

The Eastern Pamir is the size of Holland and home to 16,000 people; even that is unsustainable. Murgab, the only town of note, has a market based in aircraft and shipping containers, and a constant pong of burning tesgerine; uber-unpleasant.

We travelled up from the Afghan border, through Bulunkul, Murgab and up to Jailang – don’t look for it on your maps, Jailang is a settlement of three yurtes and two whitewashed buildings at 4100m that are home to an extended family of yak herders.